U.S. Federal Reserve Hacked By Anonymous

The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ internal servers and files were hacked by the hacktivist group Anonymous according to a report on ZDNet.

The ZDNet report alleges that “the new attack is Anonymous’ response to the information security community’s anger at the Federal Reserve (“The Fed”) for its dismissive attitude and lack of transparency around Sunday’s emergency contact system hack.”

The emergency contact system (ECS) assists agencies to set up two-way communications channels with organizations amid a crisis to interchange crucial information; such as man-made or natural disasters like chemical biological threats or events that affect financial markets, fire and weather.

The report alleges that a Spokesperson for the the Federal Reserve told reporters that Anonymous’ assertion to the importance of the hack was “overstated,” although information security professional firms that service financial institutions said the opposite — and they were upset with the Federal Reserve for minimizing the event.

According to ZDNet, at the same time, someone who had voiced his worries about the hacking was Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer of Veracode, who called the hack “a spearphishing bonanza and the most valuable account dump by quality I have seen in a while.”

Another person expressing concern about the attitude and downplaying of he U.S. Federal Reserve in regard to being hacked by Anonymous was senior information security consultant, Jon Waldman, whose company specializes in servicing small to medium sized institutions. One thing he said was that “The Fed” is not correct when it said account details aren’t on the list. He has seen the list and its full of account details. As an expert, Waldman said it is his official position that there was an irresponsible and blatant lack of urgency and tact in the reply by the Federal Reserve to the institutions and individuals named in the list.

Short URL: http://authorityempire.com/?p=10877

Posted by Fred Wilder
on Feb 25 2013. Filed under Finance.
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